WATCH: McConnell says Trump administration’s funding cuts have been ‘unnecessarily chaotic’

I'll start by associating myself with the comments that she made about the importance of American soft power. Interestingly enough, over my years in the Senate, the biggest supporters of soft power I've run into have been the military generals, who are fully aware of how much more costly it is to have a war than to prevent one. And it's at a very low cost to our country. We've built some pretty good relationships, particularly in countries in the Middle East that certainly wouldn't be described as democratic. Reforming the way we invest in peace and stability is certainly worthwhile, and there's plenty of absolute nonsense masquerading as American aid that shouldn't receive another bit of taxpayer funding. But the administration's attempt to root it out has been unnecessarily chaotic. In critical corners of the globe, instead of creating efficiencies, you've created vacuums for adversaries like China to fill. Responsible investments in soft power prevent conflict, preserve American influence, and save countless lives at the same time. So if we're concerned about spending, and we should be, it's important to remember what wars cost. At the height of World War II, 37% of our GDP was spent on defense. In Korea, 13%. In Vietnam, 9%. The Reagan buildup, only 6%. Obviously, peace through strength means more than just saying it. It means actually demonstrating it. So that's just a fact that soft power, at very little expense, goes a long way. And tellingly, some of the folks who talk most open about the importance of soft power, as I just indicated, are the military, that's saying, no, exactly what I've already said about the cost of having one. I welcome the President's intention to restore American hard power, his repeated commitments to strengthen the military's signal that he understood that, like President Reagan, that peace through strength really has to be more than a slogan. Likewise, his authorization of this weekend's strikes over the objections of isolationists who downplayed the threat of nuclear Iran was another indication in the right direction. But the administration's approach to funding the Department of Defense calls into question the ability to keep those campaign promises, a continuing resolution that forces the department to meet today's requirements with yesterday's dollars, a base budget request that fails to keep pace with inflation, let alone the pacing threat of China, and a reconciliation lump sum crowded with priorities that require stable annual appropriations. Our colleague Chairman Wicker and his House counterpart had hoped that reconciliation would be a one-time injection on top of a growing base budget, not a shell game. To avoid making the sort of annual investments we begged your Democratic predecessors to make. I share this concern. We need sustained annual growth to meet the growing threats facing our country. At your confirmation hearing earlier this year, you said we have to use taxpayer dollars wisely. I couldn't agree more. I want to get the most out of every dollar the Department of Defense requires to keep America safe and advance our global interest. By providing for the common defense is our most fundamental obligation. Dividing funding for major existing bipartisan priorities between base budget and reconciliation isn't just counterintuitive, it's actually counterproductive. And asking Congress to fund a budget that defines our strategy, rather than using strategy to define the budget, is dangerous.